


dance with me, you imagine hearing her say

by Hecate



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Buffy is still dead, F/F, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Femslash, Refusing To Admit That You're Each Other's Soulmates, Slayer Dreams, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-08 17:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11086140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: Tara is standing by the bar.“Faith,” she says. “Come here.”And Faith does, step after step, until she's standing with Tara, until she is close enough to touch, to be touched. “I'm here,” she says, and it's so easy to smile at Tara in her dream.





	dance with me, you imagine hearing her say

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badger79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badger79/gifts).



“Hello,” says the girl, the one Faith met when she was tiny and blonde and Buffy. “I'm Tara.”

“Hey,” Faith replies, voice carefully even, swallowing down the answer that is really on her lips, the 'I know' and the 'I know you' that wants to climb out of her mouth.

“I'm Willow's girlfriend,” the girl goes on.”Willow Rosenberg.”

Faith nods.

“We met some weeks ago,” Tara goes on. “When you woke up.”

“When I was Buffy,” Faith replies, thinking back to stealing B's body, remembering the way it felt when it wrapped itself around her in all its almost-perfect glory.

Tara looks away.

“You weren't Buffy,” she finally says, and there is more meaning than words in her answer, stretching it out so it becomes more, becomes heavy.

 _No, I wasn't,_ Faith doesn't say. _Everybody knows I could never be._

***

“Slayers,” her first Watcher told her, the one who cared about her, the one Faith got killed, “all Slayers have a darkness inside of them.”

Faith thinks she frowned at her Watcher back then, asked what she had meant. But she didn't get an answer, maybe wasn't supposed to get one. Most Watchers were like that, knowledge in pieces, crumb-trails of truths that Faith never got to follow to the end.

Instead, her Watcher said: “That's why Slayers have a Soulmate, somebody that can draw them in and bind them to the world.” Then, a sad smile. “You might meet yours, one day, Faith. You're supposed to. And it will change your life completely.”

And for the first time after she had been called, Faith was scared.

***

Buffy didn't have a soulmark on her body when Faith took it from her for those few days. There were bruises, of course, and there were scars, her skin riddled with constellations of battles lost and won.

Buffy had no soulmark, and it was disconnecting, wrong.

Faith always believed that there was Angel's burn on Buffy's skin. It was the only way the two of them made sense to her, the Slayer and the monster. But they weren't soulmates, weren't quite meant to be, and maybe Buffy's love for Angel was just a Slayer's darkness reaching for the world.

Buffy had no soulmark.

But she has now.

***

Tara sends her a letter.

Faith doesn't open it.

***

She dreams herself back into Buffy's body at night, dreams herself back into the Bronze. Willow is there, and so is Tara, the two of them dancing slowly while all around them people seem to move to a faster beat.

It hurts to look at them.

***

Angel visits her, and it feels as if the real world arrives with him; he sits down across her and takes a long, hard look. She isn't ready for that yet. But she would never send Angel away.

“How are you?” he asks her.

Faith shrugs. “Five by five.”

Angel smiles at her, and it's careful and drawn. “Does that line still make sense to you?”

She looks away, looks at all the grey surrounding her, at the guards and cameras, and it's all so narrow and bleak, and Faith knows she deserves it. She puts a grin on her face. “Sure it does.”

***

Tara sends her another letter.

Faith thinks about reading it.

Opens it.

And puts it away.

***

“Is there somebody waiting for you outside?” Clara asks her.

Faith shakes her head, carrying her tray with food to a free table, her cellmate following her.

“Not even the guy who keeps on visiting you?” Clara continues once they sit.

“Nah. He has too much shit going on to wait for me,” she replies, poking at the potatoes with her fork. “This is bad.”

Clara shrugs. “Isn't it always?”

Faith smiles. “It is.”

“Also, isn't everything?” Clara goes on. 

Faith laughs.

Later, at night, when they're back in their cells and Faith is curled up in the top bunk, Clara says into the darkness of the room: “I'm not sure if it makes things better or worse. Not having anyone on the outside waiting.”

Faith frowns, almost asks Clara why she cares about the outside this much today, if it's just the usual prison blues coming over her or if it's something else. Instead, she reaches out to the ceiling, putting her palm against it, feeling it press down on her, caging her in. Keeping her away from the world, keeping the world safe from her.

“Me neither,” Faith finally says.

She lets the curses and complaints of the other prisoners lull her to sleep then, and she dreams of the Bronze again. It's almost empty this time, devoid of the crowd Faith usually dreams about. It's only her on the dance floor.

Tara is standing by the bar.

“Faith,” she says. “Come here.”

And Faith does, step after step, until she's standing with Tara, until she is close enough to touch, to be touched. “I'm here,” she says, and it's so easy to smile at Tara in her dream.

Tara touches her.

The burn is a shock, just like it was back with the real Tara, it's a curious pain that feels like relief and triumph and something lost being found. “Faith,” Tara says again, and Faith can hear the bond between them in Tara's voice. “You gotta have it.” Tara grins.

And Faith wakes up.

The world is still for a moment. Then, Faith remembers her dream, remembers the real moment behind it, the Bronze, Tara and the burn. It's a sharp memory, bitter and empty, and it becomes hollower still every time Faith sees the perfect stretch of skin under her breasts, the soft hills and valleys of her ribs unnamed and unmarked where Buffy now carries the mark of a soulmate. Of Tara.

***

It's a Saturday, a day just like any other in prison, the rhythm of the days and weeks never changing, their lives counting down between lights on and lights out. It's Saturday, and Faith is on her knees, her head and mind made of piercing pain and sharp loneliness.

'Tara,' she thinks, 'oh, Tara.'

***

Faith starts to lose time, moments, she loses things and memories. When another prisoner attacks her, her strength is suddenly gone, and her legs give out beneath her. It comes back to her, the strength and the skills, but still, there are things she doesn't remember.

She is lost, she thinks, she is lost, and she doesn't understand why.

Faith dreams of Tara again, Tara with a blank face, Tara, staring at a wall. She dreams of Buffy and her sister, and she wakes up confused because Buffy doesn't have a sister, has a sister, and Faith thinks of dawns and doors and little girls. She dreams of a god, too, dreams of hell.

She dreams of Buffy in the Bronze, wearing Faith's body, wearing her own body, and Buffy is smiling, is grinning, the edges of her mouth turned sharper. “Let’s dance,” Buffy says, “Just the two of us. One last time.”

She dreams of flying.

***

“You got a visitor,” a guard tells her. Faith nods at him, gets up, grateful that the ground and the walls and the world are real again after days of being lost between what was there and all the things that weren't.

She follows the guard as he walks through prison, she walks through hallways and past empty cells and empty room, the cameras tracking them. When they end their journey through all that grey, it's not Angel waiting for her. It's Tara.

“Faith,” she says. “Buffy is dead.”

***

Sunnydale is the same Californian horror show it has always been. Vampires and soccer moms, werewolves and too happy people. Faith still feels as if she belongs anywhere but there, the colors too bright all around her. She hadn't wanted to come.

But Sunnydale needs a Slayer and the Council is fine with Faith roaming the streets again as long as it’s the streets of Sunnydale, and they had enough power over the world that Faith was almost thrown out of prison. Angel thought it was a good idea. And Buffy was dead. It wasn't like Faith had much of a choice.

***

Dawn hates her.

Giles is grey and hopeless and seems to be stuck in a circle of cleaning his glasses and looking away whenever he sees Faith.

Xander hasn't smiled since she arrived in Sunnydale.

Willow glares at her, and there is grief in every look and word, a girl turned into an open wound.

Tara smiles whenever Faith is in the same room with her, smiles at Faith, and Faith isn't used to anyone doing that. Not anyone who really knows her, at least.

And Tara is so beautiful.

***

“Hey,” Tara says.

It's the two of them in the kitchen at night, 3 am, and the house is all quiet around them.

“Hey,” Faith answers.

“Can't sleep?”

She shrugs, walking past Tara to the cupboard, getting out a glass. “Thirsty.”

“Ah.”

A pause, the sound of water filling up the glass loud between them and the world.

Then: “Faith, come here.” And Faith thinks of her dreams, of the burn and Tara and Buffy and herself. She sits down across Tara, puts down the water between them. Looks at her.

“I'm sorry,” she tells Tara and it's strange she hasn't said that to anyone yet. Not even to Dawn. “About Buffy. I know she was your soulmate and...”

Tara stares at her, and Faith is scared, just as she had been when her first Watcher told her about Slayers and their soulmatees.

“But she wasn't,” Tara says.

Faith gets up. “Don't.”

Tara smiles, looking up at her. “You are.”

Faith turns and walks out of the room.

***

Faith dreams again, but it's Buffy who walks into her mind, not Tara. It's Buffy, and she looks distant and warm and happy.

“Don't fuck this up,” Buffy tells her. “She's more than you deserve.”

Faith swallows. “I don't know what to do.”

Buffy shrugs. “Take her hand. That would be a start.” She smiles then, a dare in it. “Take her hand, Faith.”

Faith wakes up.

She misses Buffy.

***

“When did they break up?” Faith asks Xander. “Willow and Tara.”

He shrugs. “After Buffy jumped.”

And it's such a curious description of Buffy's death, so fitting for Buffy's friends.

“Willow isn't over it,” she says, thinking of the way Willow looks at Tara, looks at Faith.

Xander doesn't answer.

***

Faith almost dies on a Thursday.

It's a dumb fight, a vampire and her, and she knows she should beat him easily. But she doesn't, and suddenly he's dust and she is on her knees, blood everywhere.

She thinks of Tara.

And she sleeps.

***

“You should be the dead Slayer,” Willow tells her at the hospital. “Not Buffy.”

Faith nods.

“If I could exchange you two...”

“That's enough,” Tara stops her, and her voice is sharper than Faith imagined it could be.

Willow stares at her.

“I think it's better that you leave now, Willow,” And there is yet another edge in Tara's voice, a threat dressed up as a request.

For a few seconds, everything is still. Then, Willow gets up abruptly and storms out of the room. Tara exhales.

“You didn't have to do that,” Faith says.

Tara smiles at her. “Somebody had to. And I was the only one around.”

'And the only one willing,' Faith thinks, says aloud: “I'm not your responsibility.”

Tara frowns. “No, you're my soulmate.”

***

“Ugh,” Buffy says in her dream, stretching out all over her bed.

Faith sits on the ground, the sun coming through the window warming her.

“You were supposed to not fuck this up, Faith.”

“I was supposed to do a shitload of things,” Faith answers. “That number is almost as high as the one for things I was supposed to, you know, _not_ do.”

Buffy rolls on her stomach, looks at her. “Yeah. But this... Fuck, Faith. This is important.”

“I know,” Faith replies. “She is important.”

***

She thinks of kissing Tara. And doesn't.

***

“I'm the worst choice you could make,” Faith tells Tara in Buffy's kitchen, the microwave humming at her side.

Tara shrugs. “Maybe. But you're the choice I need to make.”

“Because we’re soulmates? Because some fucked-up powers told us to hold hands and sing kumbayah? That's not okay, Tara.” And Faith is angry. Angry at the power that called her and turned her and made her a Slayer, angry that it thought that somebody else had to bind her to the world. People deserve better than that. 

Tara deserves better than that.

“Faith,” Tara says. “Have some.”

Faith snorts. It's always been a bad joke.

Tara grins. “Maybe this will work out.”

“Maybe it will end in disaster,” Faith counters.

Another shrug. “So, basically, life.”

***

“Pancakes?” Buffy asks in her dream.

Faith nods.

“You think the whole soulmate thing is for real?” she asks, looking at the perfect pancakes Buffy put on her plate.

Buffy turns to her. “What do you mean?”

“Is it love?”

A smile, sad and lonely. “I think it's as close as a Slayer will ever get to that.”

***

They are in the Bronze, light and music and drinks, and it's real this time. They are in the Bronze and Tara is with her.

“Dance with me,” Tara says, and Faith thinks of saying no, doesn't want to say no.

“Dance with me,” Tara repeats, and she takes Faith's hand.

And Faith doesn't quite understand it. How she can be the Slayer, can be a murderer, but Tara is the brave one. 

“Okay,” she says, and she follows Tara onto the dance floor, lets herself be pulled closer and into an embrace.

“I'm not good enough for you,” she tells her, whispers it between the beats of the music. She feels Tara's answering smile beneath her skin.

“Then you better practise. Being good, I mean.” And Tara pulls away from her slightly, smiles at Faith under the strobe lights. “Gotta have faith, remember?”

And Faith smiles, nods. “Gotta have faith.”

Tara kisses her.

And it's a shock, it's soft lips pressed against hers and a body to lean on, it's a promise and it's the world reaching out for Faith, wrapping itself around her. It's frightening and it's relief and triumph and being found. 

Beneath her shirt, under her breasts, between the soft valleys and hills of her ribs, a burn stretches out across her skin.


End file.
